


Salad Daze

by Janice_Lester



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/pseuds/Janice_Lester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is acting strangely.  McCoy quickly uncovers the root cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salad Daze

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time between ST V and ST VI. Written for the "hypnosis/mind control" square on my second [](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[kink_bingo](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card. Features mind-melds being used to alter post-meld behaviour. Jim's informed consent to this is in doubt, but he trusts Spock and isn't ultimately unhappy with the results. Cracky. Beta'd by [](http://nix-this.livejournal.com/profile)[nix_this](http://nix-this.livejournal.com/).

It’s not every day a man sees Captain James T. Kirk eating out a tomato quarter like it’s the most delicious morsel he’s ever had the fortune to caress with his tongue. It’s actually not every day a man gets to see Jim Kirk eating fruit and veggies that haven’t been roasted to death, crushed into sauces, or baked into pies. Today, mercy of mercies, Jim is eating a salad. And _enjoying_ the damn thing. Will the damn miracles never cease?

“Is it me,” Jim asks, when Leonard plonks down his dinner tray and pulls up a chair, “or is today’s salad the apex, the zenith, nay, the very Platonic Form of a salad?”

Leonard obediently raises a forkful of his own standard issue salad to his mouth for a taste. Chews, thinks, swallows. “It’s just a salad, Jim. Not bad for three weeks out of starbase, but certainly nothing to write home about.”

Jim huffs like he’s offended, hunching protectively over his meal. Then he turns, and there’s a rather worrying crafty gleam in his eye. “So you won’t be finishing yours, then, since it’s so very lacklustre?”

Something deucedly odd is going on here. Leonard resolves to try an experiment. “I s’pose I could trade you for it. You won’t be needing that pudding, right?”

“Take it, take it!” Jim cries, seizing Leonard's salad plate _and_ the fork on which he’d just speared a slice of eggplant.

Leonard is left with two unwholesome Starfleet-issue puddings, one substantial whole wheat sandwich, one cup of badly-reconstituted orange juice, and a burning need to have a private little chat with their resident Vulcan. Possibly the kind of chat motivated by thumbscrews applied with surgical precision to the other party.

***

As he ages, Spock’s body is getting less efficient at providing for all its vitamin and nutritional needs from the available diet. It’s a subtle thing, but Leonard's been Spock’s doctor a long time—and was even the keeper of the man’s immortal soul for a while there—and he notices the way Spock’s levels of various goodies gradually drop over the years. About a year ago, he’d made the decision to order Spock into some specific treatments. Spock would rather have clung to the daily monotony of prescription supplements, all scientific and hassle-free, one nondescript grey pill after another, but Leonard's always been a big picture thinker and it’s long seemed to him that Spock’s problem is as much about light and atmosphere as about diet. Vulcans cope admirably for years on diets evolution has barely equipped them for, and Spock’s hybrid status ought to help, not hinder, his ability to thrive on Starfleet’s perennially human-biased cuisine. No, if you ask Leonard, and you should, Spock’s body is missing the peculiar radiations of the particular star he was born under, the unique combinations of air pressure and temperature and atmosphere that bred and moulded his father’s species.

So Spock has to spend at least two hours a week in a specially-equipped room off sickbay. Sunning himself. Breathing in the carefully-modified, extra-thin air that makes human visitors feel like they’re suddenly at altitude.

Which means Leonard has a captive audience for any lectures he might want to dole out in relation to a certain someone else’s dietary habits.

He puts on sunglasses and takes a tiny dose of tri-ox before venturing in, though. It’s extremely difficult to win an argument with Spock if you’ve passed out embarrassingly on the floor. He regrets that he knows this from experience.

***

Spock is eating some kind of fruit-cube-and-pasta dish when Leonard is admitted to the special room—Leonard has the odd sensation of knowing what the dish tastes like without knowing what it _is_. Katra-carrying, it would seem, has some very long-term consequences. Spock’s long fingers are spare and elegant with the chopsticks.

“Doctor McCoy,” he says, pausing to blot at his lips with a napkin. “Is there a problem with my treatment?”

“Nope. Just wanted a chat.” He steps further into the room, allowing the door to swish closed. “About Jim. And certain… behavioural changes I’ve been observing.”

“Indeed,” says Spock. It’s not even a question, though his eyebrows lift.

“The two of you wouldn’t have been engaging in any recreational mind-melding, by any chance?”

Spock carefully sets aside his food dish, takes a sip from his mug of weird Vulcan broth, then returns his full attention to Leonard. “I believe we may dispense with the ‘pussyfooting’, Doctor. Jim permitted me to place some… post-hypnotic suggestions, if you will, in his mind during a meld.”

Leonard leans against the wall, crosses his legs at the ankle. “Uh huh. Now why would he do a thing like that?”

“I promised that I would introduce him to pleasures of the flesh he had never before appreciated.”

It all begins to come clear, and Leonard has difficulty holding back what Spock would no doubt consider an unseemly grin. “And these pleasures turned out to include a full and proper appreciation of the miracle of salad.”

“Precisely. I have often noted that the captain takes the greatest pleasure in the least nourishing of his meal choices. This is illogical, and greatly diminishes his potential happiness. I have now remedied that situation. And one or two others. It would seem I should have encouraged him to conceal his enjoyment somewhat better.”

They share a tiny smile. Then Leonard sighs. “You have to tell him, though. Otherwise it’s ethical quicksand.”

“You, Doctor, are what I believe may be termed a ‘spoilsport’.”

“I am, I really am. But, hey, you pick your moment right he might recall all this wonderful orgasmic pleasure he’s been having eating lettuce and maybe he won’t mind at all. Maybe he won’t want you undoing your handiwork.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Spock says, nodding gravely. Then he retrieves his food, gathers up his chopsticks, and resumes his meal.

***

“Hi, Bones!” Jim cries, waving cheerfully from his position crawling upside-down on the ceiling portion of the gym’s climbing wall. Of all the... Leonard desperately hopes today isn’t the day the automatic belaying system has its first-ever recorded failure. “Catch me if you can!”

“I thought I’d have a nice, safe, age-appropriate jog on a treadmill, actually, Jim. Which is what you usually do, isn’t it?”

Jim deftly shifts foot-holds, spider-walks nimbly across and down the wall until he’s swinging by strong arms, his climbing-shoed toes a scant foot off the gym floor. “Treadmills are boring. Fake. Phoney. Flaccid.”

“That’s what you say about climbing walls. No chance of truly falling and cracking your idiot skull, no adrenaline, and all the holds are a hundred percent reliable.”

“Yeah,” Jim says, thoughtfully. “That sounds like something I would say. But this is _splendid_. Can’t remember when I’ve had more fun!”

Leonard sighs. “Did, uh, Spock help you see how wonderful indoor rock climbing could be?”

Jim lifts himself up, arm muscles rippling beautifully, lifts his legs smoothly until his knees meet his stomach, then drops slowly back to full extension. “I think so,” he says, and frowns slightly.

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

Jim grins. “Bones, this is FUN! I owe him so much!”

“Perhaps you could make him a nice _salad,_ ” Leonard suggests darkly. “To say thanks.”

Jim laughs, flips over, and starts crawling over the wall again with little apparent regard for the dictates of gravity or decorum.

Leonard grumbles a little and heads for a treadmill.

***

_~If your intentions are purely altruistic,~_ Leonard messages Spock that afternoon after watching Jim sigh and moan his way through a tub of rather limp coleslaw with a minimal and bland mayonnaise, _~perhaps you might see fit to correct Jim’s attitudes where showing up to sickbay for required physicals are concerned? A general improvement in his willingness to seek medical attention when necessary would be greatly appreciated, not to mention good for his damn health. LHM.~_

_~While I cannot claim that my motives are either **pure** or **altruistic** , Doctor, I believe I can accommodate your request. Spock.~_

_~And what **are** your motives, hmm?~_

_~This is not an appropriate venue for the discussion of personal matters. Excuse me, Doctor. I have work.~_

It’s just possible that Leonard McCoy divides the rest of the afternoon between grinning and muttering to himself about weird kinky Vulcans and their idiot human playthings.

***END***


End file.
